Monday, October 29, 2007

THIS DUTCH BOY must be pretty sick by now (he'd be pretty old too, but let's not cloud the issue with that). This is the cover of a little booklet I came across in my grandfather's belongings, a promotional give-away from Dutch Boy Paints. My grandfather, Louis Page (my mom's father) was a traveling hardware salesman at the time this was published, 1928.

It seems odd now that they were touting the fact that their paint contained lead! And to kids, no less.

Grandaddy Page later settled down in his own hardware store in Columbus OH and lived to the pretty decent age of 89, despite smoking cigars every day and enjoying his Scotch of an evening. He was also a bit of a poet -- I'll have to organize his writing some day and perhaps post some -- and a darned good piano player.

I may have to take up cigar smoking again, too (already have the Scotch part covered).